


javelins of light

by itsrosencrantz



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Background Relationships, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Rivals to Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29750019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsrosencrantz/pseuds/itsrosencrantz
Summary: That was what he told himself, but even with five notches in his and Ferdinand's belt, nothing changed. Nothing except the world around them: Pilots became Rangers became heroes became celebrities. Demonic beasts went from nightmares-in-life to stories told to frighten children into a proper bed time, their dolls clutched in their hands while they played at the base of giant walls reaching, brick by brick, for the sky.Lorenz retired. Ferdinand went on to become part of the first trio of Rangers, known in terror and respect as the Adrestian Trio, and Lorenz remained at Garreg Mach's shatterdome, his father's eyes and ears on location, testing recruits, and overseeing repairs and construction at Jeralt Eisner's elbow.And then Claude von Riegan arrived.
Relationships: Lorenz Hellman Gloucester/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	javelins of light

**Author's Note:**

> Minor/Background pairings will include: Sylvix, Marihilda, Casphardt, Ferdibert, and Edeleth, but most will be passing mentions through character interaction and not a focal point of the writing, so I did not tag them.
> 
> Warnings will be added as needed as the story progresses. Canonical death presently tagged for is Glenn Fraldarius. This will follow some elements of the movie, but it will not be a complete retelling. There will be one more canonical death from FE3H. None of the characters who die in this fic will be student characters from FE3H.

Everyone knows where they were when Glenn Fraldarius and Dimitri Blaiddyd's Jaeger went down. Lorenz was in Deirdriu with his mother, taking her out for a nice, relaxing weekend to lift her spirits and hopefully improve her health; she'd always been a bit frail, but the increasing waves of demonic beast attacks had seen her stress mounting to the point of illness. His father couldn't be much comfort to her, either - his position on the Roundtable made it impossible for him to give her the attention she needed, and his ambition to see a Gloucester lead it meant that he devoted himself wholly, fully to the pursuit of ending the onslaught and picking the pieces up afterward. 

To keep the peace in their home, Lorenz had offered to take her away for a short while; he'd ended up having to cradle her desperately against his chest when _Regal Spectre_ and a Category 4 demonic beast tore their way up the coastline and shredded homes, businesses, forests like paper dolls. She'd buried her sobs in his chest while he watched, wide and glassy eyed, as one of the pilots - Fraldarius, he'd learn later, sitting quietly with his hands wrapped around a teacup and his spine very straight - was torn from the cockpit and hurled into the sea.

Blaiddyd managed to kill the beast and drag himself to the shore. From what Lorenz knows, he was never the same again; the crown prince of Faerghus disappeared from the public eye, his most trusted knight's sacrifice was immortalized with a monument, and another demonic beast breached the ocean sixteen weeks later.

His mother, too, was never the same, and selfishly, that always mattered more to Lorenz than a distant prince of a country he owed no allegiance or sentiment toward. She stopped speaking entirely, and eventually, stopped even acknowledging him when he visited. It was for her that he convinced his father to allow him to go to Garreg Mach and find some way to be useful, to help; if they could stop the beasts, he knew that his mother would come back to herself one day.

That was what he told himself, but even with five notches in his and Ferdinand's belt, nothing changed. Nothing except the world around them: Pilots became Rangers became heroes became celebrities. demonic beasts went from nightmares-in-life to stories told to frighten children into a proper bed time, their dolls clutched in their hands while they played at the base of giant walls reaching, brick by brick, for the sky. 

Lorenz retired. Ferdinand went on to become part of the first trio of Rangers, known in terror and respect as the Adrestian Trio, and Lorenz remained at Garreg Mach's shatterdome, his father's eyes and ears on location, testing recruits, and overseeing repairs and construction at Jeralt Eisner's elbow. 

And then Claude von Riegan arrived.

*

"Gloucester, you have that candidate list ready for me?"

Without looking up from the stack of parchment tucked in the crook of his arm, Lorenz falls into step with Eisner easily, quill scratching against paper in steady strokes. "Yes. Repairs on the _Rouge_ are completed as well, so as soon as an appropriate drift partner is located, we will have another Jaeger in the air. Has von Riegan been briefed?"

He does his best to keep his tone level and professional, but someone as perceptive as Jeralt is can no doubt pick apart the undercurrent of resentment. Having anyone aside from himself or Ferdinand von Aegir in the cockpit of _Rouge Banshee_ makes something in his chest recoil, but there is nothing to be done for it; his father has strongly discouraged him from attempting to take up arms as a Ranger again, and even if he wanted to, it is unlikely that he and this newcomer would be drift compatible. It had been difficult enough to find a partner the first time, and though he knows that he and Ferdinand could fall back into step as seamlessly as they ever had, his friend's skills are far better applied to _Chimera Berserker_ alongside von Vestra and von Hresvelg. 

He'd never seen as powerful a neural handshake as the one that formed between the three of them. With von Vestra spending so much time in the library with von Hevring these days, there is even less of an excuse to pull him from _Chimera_. They are short enough on Rangers as it is, too few people spread far too thin in one of the last remaining shatterdomes, for him to be possessive and selfish.

Still, he tears the topmost sheet with a particularly aggressive check, and finally looks up to find Eisner studying him. "Did I miss your response? I beg your pardon."

"No. He's been briefed," Jeralt says finally, the corner of his mouth ticking up into a smile. "For a measure of the word. Eager to meet you."

Lorenz's nose wrinkles in displeasure even as the embers of satisfaction warm at the thought. It has been some time since he was out in the field, but when he was, he was one of the best. "I cannot imagine why."

They round the corner shoulder-to-shoulder and very nearly plow into the man in question, too busy craning his neck to take in the levels upon levels of machinery and workers required to keep even an operation as struggling as Garreg Mach's shatterdome functioning to bother to watch where he is going. The split-second before they're noticed allows Lorenz an unobstructed glimpse of his face, utterly unguarded, and he pays specific attention to the way that Claude von Riegan's aura shifts when he becomes aware of observation. It is nothing very obvious, and if Lorenz weren't looking specifically for it, he wouldn't notice the brief flicker of surprise and something that almost looks like triumph before, in the space of one blink, he simply looks pleasantly curious. 

"Whoops, guess I'd better watch where I'm going," he says, holding a hand out gamely toward the both of them, centered perfectly between them. "Claude von Riegan. You must be Lorenz, right?"

Even the cadence of his voice is smooth and utterly unassuming, and it puts Lorenz's hackles up immediately. He's met plenty of people trying far too hard to appear harmless, and he glances down at his hand, deliberately checking another item off his list as Jeralt reaches out to take it. 

"Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, yes. I will be overseeing your candidacy trials." His eyes flick up briefly, catching vivid green, and hold. "I pray that you are an appropriate match for someone here. _Rouge_ has been grounded too long."

Claude turns and falls into step between the two of them, apparently content to study Lorenz without even the barest modicum of decorum as he matches pace with him and allows the joint efforts of the men flanking him to guide him where he needs to go. "I've read about her. Five years, right? Since you and Ferdinand von Aegir last took her out? That was right when the program was hitting its stride. A little surprising she wasn't scrapped out."

Offense prickles the back of his throat and he whips his head to the side, glaring. In profile, he can see Jeralt trying not to smile, which is equally infuriating. "It would have been a larger expense to scrap her than to keep her in storage until she could be repaired. And with the advent of the next mark of Jaegers, it-"

"-just made sense to focus on them, right, I've gotcha." Claude snaps his fingers, and Lorenz (just a little bit) wants to snap _him_. "Still, lucky you had the parts and the drive to get her up and running again, or we'd be down to what, three? At Garreg Mach?"

"Three," he agrees reluctantly, turning a corner abruptly and taking perverse pleasure in Claude's muttered oops as he squeezes up into Jeralt. "And it has very little to do with luck, von Riegan. Our engineering and magical research teams are the most sophisticated Fódlan has to offer. On site, we currently have the _Chimera Berserker_ , piloted by Ferdinand von Aegir and Edelgard von Hresvelg, usually, though on occasion they are joined by Hubert von Vestra, as well as _Echo Sabre_ \- Felix Fraldarius and Sylvain Gautier of Faerghus fame - and _Viper Knave_ , piloted by Ashe Ubert and Caspar von Bergliez."

"The Adrestian Trio," Claude says, voice sharp with interest, as he shoves his hands in his pockets. "Almost didn't believe it when I heard it. And Faerghus' golden duo, too - you sure know how to give a guy performance anxiety."

He doesn't sound like he's the least bit anxious, and the look on his face is amused enough that Lorenz knows he's perfectly aware that he's being irritating. 

"I'm certain you will endeavor to rally despite it," Lorenz says flatly, pinching his mouth closed when Jeralt snorts at Claude's other side. "This way, please."

* 

The candidacy trials - if they can be called that - make a mockery of their intent. For all von Riegan is casual, loose grace, a man determined to flow beneath the notice of everyone until such a time as it is is convenient for him, Lorenz suspects, he's a wickedly talented fighter. From the edge of the ring, Lorenz watches with increasing frustration the graceful way that he moves, at perfect ease with the staff in hand, and how no one seems to be able to pick up his rhythm. He's intentionally frustrating, but that's the point; drift compatibility is the exception, not the rule, and it will only waste everyone's time if they do not come into the trials with their very best effort. It is about finding a partner, someone to synchronize with, as much as it is about finding someone who challenges you.

He's sparred alongside plenty of the men and woman at the shatterdome, and he knows they are capable. Against Claude's impeccable footwork and his indecipherable smile, he watches seasoned fighters stumble and falter. He sees the moment each realizes that their dream of piloting has been sidelined once again; there are not enough Jaegers left for anything but a real connection to allow someone in a cockpit anymore, and this recruitment is the last desperate attempt before the program is decommissioned entirely. Each time he strikes a line through the _viable candidate_ line on his document he can feel his blood pressure rise and his heart sink, not only for the ambitions of those who will never see them come to fruition, but also for all of Fódlan.

The demonic beasts will not go away on their own, he knows, no matter what the powers that be in government seem to want to believe.

Lorenz also knows well what it feels like to be in the cockpit, to have his mind melded seamlessly with someone. To move as one, to share the thrill of victory and borrow adrenaline in the noblest pursuit of all - protecting _everyone_ \- and he considers himself privileged and lucky to have served. His transition to administration had been a difficult one at the time, but his regret is more acute now, knowing that the opportunity to ever experience it again slips through his fingers like grains of sand with each passing day. That is a good thing, supposedly - it means that the world does not need Jaegers and their pilots - but pessimism is an old friend of his, and he can't shake the idea that they make a grave mistake by transitioning away from the program.

He's submitted numerous reports to his father on the subject. They have all been dismissed in turn, often with a not-so-gentle reminder that he is at Garreg Mach to ease the transition away from the Ranger program, not to further Jeralt Eisner's agenda in reinstating it.

A loud crack draws his attention back to the match at hand, and he can't help the sharp, short sigh as he sees von Riegan twirl his staff hand-over-hand before his opponent, whose own weapon is a good three yards away, rolling into the wall. "We are getting _nowhere_."

Claude catches the staff in one hand, appearing to consider its heft, and then points it at Lorenz from across the room. His smile is enigmatic as always, and Lorenz can feel it scrape up the length of his spine. "Why don't _you_ give it a shot?"

He can feel Jeralt shift next to him.

"No," Lorenz says, turning the page on his notebook. "We still have several candidates to get through."

"Yeah, but you used to be great." The earnest way he says it doesn't mask the intent, and Lorenz's eyes dart back up, hot and irritated. Claude is still pointing that staff at him, unwavering. "Even if you're out of practice, I'm sure we could give everyone here a better idea of what we're looking for. You've got to know my moves inside and out now, right?"

No matter how friendly the delivery, the taunt is obvious, and Lorenz doesn't appreciate being manipulated. He appreciates it even less when he realizes it's happening and he knows he is going to succumb to it anyway, because he has watched closely and he does know the beat of Claude's movements. At his side, Eisner remains silent, though that's nothing new; he's been of the opinion that Lorenz should have been part of the trials from the beginning, and Lorenz knows if he wants someone to be the voice of restraint, it will have to be himself.

Wordlessly, he passes his clipboard to his superior officer.

"If you are so eager to be put on your back, I don't see why I can't oblige you."

Claude's laugh rings out between them and he tosses the staff upward so that it flips end over end, eyes bright when Lorenz catches it mid-flip and brings it down against his own shoulder, expression flat. 

With his free hand, he gestures toward where the other staff rests on the ground. "Stop wasting time with your showboating, von Riegan. Four strikes marks a win, as you are aware."

Without the opportunity to warm up, Lorenz knows himself to be at a slight disadvantage, but he also has not been through several trials already. Paired against the fatigue Claude must no doubt be feeling - his victory against each person was not without effort, even if each bout had resulted in a resounding failure - they are at least on close to equitable footing. As Claude arms himself, Lorenz flips the staff in his hands and begins to twirl it in figure eights, moving across the ring as he does so.

The last time he did this was with Ferdinand, and the memory of that is still bright and vivid in his mind. Matching him blow-for-blow, trading advantage as their friendship morphed a duel into an elegant dance, its beat pulsing through the crack of wood, had been a feeling beyond compare. The satisfaction and joy of validation, knowing without a shred of doubt that they would go into the chamber and, when the magic was cast, would drift through the current as a unit, is a feeling that Lorenz knows most people are lucky to experience once if at all. He has no hope for such a connection with Claude von Riegan, he decides, hands still as they both fall into a ready stance.

Lorenz is formal and disciplined, Claude loose and fluid. Earth to water, he thinks, at the first blow - he feels the force of it reverberate down his arms and wind around his elbows, and the smirk at the corner of Claude's mouth curls in satisfaction. It's a splash of oil onto the fire already lit, and Lorenz steps into the role of aggressor, delivering a volley of brutally fast, brief strikes one after another. He drives Claude backward, knowing from what he observed earlier that he is vulnerable on his left side, and so at the height of his barrage -

He goes for the right. Claude's eyes widen as Lorenz brings the staff around, stopping it barely a breath away from his side, and murmurs, "One-zero. Did you forget I was watching you?"

Rather than frustration, though, he sees interest crawling over Claude's face and sharpening his eyes. "How could I? Your gaze weighs fifty pounds."

These bouts never take long. When two people are matched well - when their styles complement one another - it is apparent within the first few moves, and it rarely takes four full strikes to determine whether or not the exercise has been a success. When sparring with Ferdinand, they'd worked well together because their fighting styles were an extension of one another's; they'd been able to easily predict whatever move the other would make and work with or against it as the situation required. It was like meeting like and growing stronger together.

Falling back into ready stance, Lorenz appraises Claude coolly. He is a chameleon of a man, from what Lorenz has seen. Though he'd teased earlier, they both know fully well that Lorenz cannot possibly know _all_ of Claude's moves, because he isn't certain he's seen Claude do anything that wasn't informed by his partner first. He's demanded each person he's matched with be the moving party, and in the first few seconds, he's learned what he needed to do in order to gain and maintain the upper hand. 

One of Lorenz's strengths as a pilot has always been his dual aptitude in physical combat as well as magical. He would never cast in a ring match, of course - integrity alone would stay his hand, nevermind that it would undermine and invalidate the exercise entirely and be a waste of time - but his experience honing his skills for two very different types of combat make him adaptable, too. Perhaps not so amorphous as Claude appears to be, this man who dropped into Garreg Mach from who knows where and flips the script on whoever he faces, using their own strengths to their disadvantage, but he knows what he is doing in battle.

Within the next five seconds, Claude has scored a point on him. 

The staff is blurred in front of his face, his eyes intent on Claude's, as the other man cheerfully returns, "One-one. Nice footwork."

It's a head game for him. He's chatty and complimentary, exuding an aura of friendliness meant to disarm a less worthy opponent, Lorenz supposes, but he brushes it aside as he would any other attempt at subterfuge. He looks to the heart of what Claude is doing and cuts through the fat of it, something that he believes they both have in common. Claude may be running his mouth, but his face above it is still and watchful. Cover his lips, and their expressions would be the same, Lorenz thinks, and advances once more.

"You don't want to let anybody into _Rouge_ 's cockpit," Claude says, voice a little thready from the exertion of matching the pace Lorenz has set. "But you _really_ don't want to let anybody in there without you. One-two."

He's struck a nerve, as he knew that he would, and Lorenz's brows draw together even more sharply. He wants to ignore the banter, because he knows that playing into it is putting himself in Claude's hands to be twisted and manipulated as he so chooses, but it is impossible to; they have an audience, and the only thing that travels faster than news in the shatterdome is rumor. 

To be accused of purposefully sabotaging the trials when he wants nothing more than to see to their success is an insult that cannot and will not be borne in silence, and at the next blow, Lorenz leans in, his teeth bared in a snarl. "Two-two. Keep your baseless accusations to yourself, if you please. I have devoted the last five years of my life to this program, and I will not tolerate some outsider _upstart_ questioning my integrity."

The back of Claude's heel crosses over the barrier of the ring, but he doesn't flinch away from where Lorenz leans in over him. "Noted," is all he says, and they begin again.

As acutely aware of the spectators as Lorenz was a moment ago, in a moment, they are gone from his attention entirely: his sole focus is on Claude von Riegan. The way that he moves, the stillness of his expression as sweat slides down the bridge of his nose, the way that triumph creeps into his face with each additional hit that either of them land - he is maddening, and worse, Lorenz can recognize exactly what is happening. Where he and Ferdinand were a matched pair, he and Claude are almost diametrically opposed; Lorenz moves left, and Claude is right, without hesitation or falter. To the inexperienced eye, they would seem too different to be effective as a team, but Lorenz knows the truth of it:

They make up for what one another lacks.

Claude's back hits the ground and his breath leaves him in one forceful exhale, Lorenz's staff pointed down at his face, and distantly, he is aware of a steady, slow clap. His own chest heaves, disappointment and elation twining around one another and gripping his throat tightly, as Claude has the audacity to _grin_ up at him from the mat.

"Four-three." Claude's outstretched hand hovers in the air between them, fingers splayed. "Give me a hand, partner?"

Their palms slap together a little more forcefully than is needed, and Lorenz hauls Claude to his feet. 

His mouth firms, and when he goes to release Claude's hand, he finds that instead, his fingers are trapped in a tight grip and his hand is shook.

"Looking forward to working with you," Claude says.

Tone frigid to the point of cracking, Lorenz returns through his teeth, "I hope you will continue to perform admirably."

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on twitter at itsrosencrantz!


End file.
